IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Sep 2013 Open Access

User Manuals for a Primary Care Electronic Medical Record System: A Mixed-Methods Study of User- and Vendor-Generated Documents

Aviv Shachak University of Toronto ; Rustam Dow University of Toronto ; Jan Barnsley University of Toronto ; Karen Tu University of Toronto ; Sharon Domb University of Toronto ; Alejandro R. Jadad University of Toronto ; Louise Lemieux-Charles

Abstract

The user-developed tutorials and manuals differed from the vendor-developed manual in that they contained mostly procedural and not declarative information; were customized to the specific workflow, user roles, and patient characteristics; contained more error information related to work processes than to software usage; and used explicit visual cues on screen captures to help users identify window elements. These findings imply that to support EMR implementation, tutorials and manuals need to be customized and adapted to specific organizational contexts and workflows. The main limitation of the study is its generalizability. Future research should address this limitation and may explore alternative approaches to software documentation, such as modular manuals or participatory design.

Journal
IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Published
2013-09-01
DOI
10.1109/tpc.2013.2263649
CompPile
Open Access
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